“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Dean Baker: Debt Worries: Economists Fail Arithmetic, Again
The Washington political establishment has decided that reducing the debt should be the country’s number one economic priority. The tens of millions who are unemployed, underemployed or out of the workforce altogether due to the fallout from the collapse of the housing bubble will just have to wait until things get better; limiting the growth of the debt is the order of the day in Washington. [..]
Is it possible that many of the world’s leading economists are completely missing the boat in their understanding of the way in which the debt poses a burden on the economy? While that may seem far-fetched, almost all of the world’s leading economists completely missed the housing bubbles, in the United States and elsewhere, and the dangers the housing bubbles posed to the economy. In fact, the reason that the United States and other countries are facing large deficits today is almost entirely the result of the failure of the economists who were guiding policy in the years preceding the crash. [..]
In fact, they were anxious to put Social Security money in the stock market. The Republican economists wanted to get the money into the market through private accounts, and the Democratic economists wanted to do it by investing the Social Security trust fund directly. Either way, both got their arithmetic wrong.
Robert Reich: Mitt Romney’s Biggest Problem: He’s Giving the GOP Exactly What It Wants in a Candidate
I’ve spent the past few days debating right-wingers – among them, Grover Norquist and Ann Coulter. This isn’t my idea of fun. I do it because apparently many Americans find these people persuasive, and it seems important to try to show why they’re profoundly wrong.
There are two major theories about why Romney is dropping in the polls. One is Romney is a lousy candidate, unable to connect with people or make his case.
The second is that Americans are finally beginning to see how radical the GOP has become, and are repudiating it. [..]
Romney’s failing isn’t that he’s a bad candidate. To the contrary, he’s giving this GOP exactly what it wants in a candidate. And that’s exactly the problem for Romney – as it is for every other Republican candidate – because what the GOP wants is not at all what the rest of America wants.
Paul Ryan admits that he’s an “end Medicare as we know it” candidate.
But, somehow, we are not supposed to think that he would actually end the popular and successful healthcare program for the elderly, as well as related Medicaid programs for the poor and people with disabilities.
The “as we know it” part provides a sort of cover, as least in the eyes of a media that is more inclined toward stenography than journalism. [..]
Only when a candidate starts talking about ending entitlement programs-as in “doing away” with them-can we be serious about the immediate threat those programs actually face.
Meet Tommy Thompson, former Republican governor of Wisconsin, former Bush-Cheney administration secretary of health and human services, former candidate for the Republican nomination for president and mentor to Paul Ryan.
Paul Buchheit: Now We Know Our ABCs. And Charter Schools Get an F.
The Chicago teacher strike is over, but the assault on our nation’s children has just begun. As with all free market systems, the price is set high enough to ensure a profit for the companies doing business, even though not everyone will be able to afford their product.
With our private health care system, 1 out of 6 Americans are uninsured. It’s frightening to think of a private educational system in which 1 out of 6 children have to settle for an inferior education.
We’ve learned a lot in recent years from the struggles within our schools. Here are three sensible considerations for anyone involved in the education of our children.
Sam Pizzagati; The ‘Self-Made’ Hallucination of America’s Rich
Like Mitt Romney, most Americans who amass grand fortunes have a substantial head start.
Let’s cut Mitt Romney some slack. Not every off-the-cuff comment he made at that now infamous, secretly taped $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton reveals an utterly shocking personal failing. Take, for instance, Mitt’s remark that he has “inherited nothing.”
Not quite “nothing.” But there’s no reason to pick on Mitt either. Most deep pockets, not just Mitt, consider themselves “self-made.” The best evidence of this predilection to claim “self-made” status? The annual September release of the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans. [..]
Forbes made the same observation last year, too, and most news outlets took that claim at face value. But United for a Fair Economy did not. The Boston-based group’s analysts took the time to investigate the actual backgrounds of last year’s Forbes 400. They released their findings (pdf) on the same day Forbes released the new 2012 list.
The basic conclusion from these findings: Forbes is spinning “a misleading tale of what it takes to become wealthy in America.” Most of the Forbes 400, like Mitt, have benefitted from a level of privilege unknown to the vast majority of Americans.
Joe Conason: Looking for That ’47 Percent,’ Mitt? Check Red States and Elderly Republicans
While Mitt Romney may well wish he had expressed himself more “elegantly” at the swanky Boca Raton fundraiser where he denounced half the voting population as shiftless, government-entitled moochers, he isn’t backing away from those secretly recorded remarks-although what he said was entirely inaccurate, as well as obnoxious. [..]
Leaving aside the significant probability that his listeners included a few of the thousands of millionaires who paid no income taxes last year, there is no reason to believe that voters who don’t pay income taxes are certain to vote Democratic. A substantial number of the people who are too poor to pay income taxes, thanks to tax reforms supported by Ronald Reagan, are among the Southern whites inclined to vote for Romney. In 2008, according to the New York Times, 25 percent of voters earning under $15,000 per year and 37 percent of those earning between $15,000 and $30,000 per year voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Recent Comments